Blue's News

I'm hoping for a little feedback on my "Blue's News" features. If you're new to this, basically what I've been doing is scanning the news and picking out a few stories that have caught my eye and presented them here. These are usually stories that I feel are important, but haven't quite gotten the attention they deserve. This is not meant to be a comprehensive news roundup, just some stories you might not have been aware of.

Comment away. Should I keep doing this? Should I tinker with the format a little? More commentary? Just a straight presentation of the stories? Do you find this informative and enlightening?

Anyway, here's the latest edition of Blue's News...

NY Times: "Bombing Attacks on Iraqi Forces Kill 38 in North"

MOSUL, Iraq, June 26 - Four suicide bomb attacks struck Iraqi police and an Iraqi Army base in a 16-hour wave of insurgent violence in the northern city of Mosul on Saturday and Sunday, killing 38 people and wounding scores more. One American commander said the violence continued a trend in the past few weeks of insurgent attacks intensely focused on Iraqi security forces.

The attacks came as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld echoed remarks by his advisers in recent months suggesting that the insurgency could last as long as a dozen years and that Iraq would become more violent before elections later this year.

This story is important because of the suicide attacks - there's no throes like the "last throes" - but the political stuff that's buried deep within the story is more important...

In Washington, Mr. Rumsfeld and General Abizaid said the American-led operation in Iraq was making progress, but acknowledged that the insurgency had become increasingly deadly and could last for years.

"Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years," Mr. Rumsfeld said on "Fox News Sunday." "Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency."

Mr. Rumsfeld also acknowledged that American and Iraqi officials had met with people who presented themselves as insurgents, but on the NBC News program "Meet the Press" he said of the Iraqis, "They're not going to try to bring in the people with blood on their hands, for sure, but they certainly are reaching out continuously, and we help to facilitate those from time to time."

...The administration's exit strategy from Iraq hinges on training enough Iraqi military and police forces to take over for American and allied troops. But some senior American officers have said it could be two years before enough Iraqis are trained sufficiently and the insurgency is weakened to the point where Iraqis can handle things on their own.

So, according to this, we're looking at at least two more years in Iraq, possible many more. More on the negotiations with the insurgents can be found here...

Washington Post: "U.S. Talks with Iraqi Insurgents Confirmed"

And, oh yeah, there's another war going on that everyone seems to have forgotten about...

Washington Post: "Fighting a Hard, Half-Forgotten War"

QALAT, Afghanistan -- When Spec. Nick Conlon and the other members of his infantry battalion learned they would be deployed to the Afghan province of Zabol this spring, many expected their worst enemy to be boredom. In preparation, Conlon stocked up on more than 20 DVDs, such as "Alien vs. Predator," "X-Men" and "Daredevil."

But in the three months since the battalion set up camp in this isolated, mountainous region of southeastern Afghanistan, Conlon has not had time to watch a single movie. Instead, the battalion has found itself at the center of a heated though somewhat forgotten war that is still underway 3 1/2 years after the extremist Taliban militia was ousted from power.

Closer to home...

NY Times: "Endangered Species Act Faces Broad New Challenges"

WASHINGTON, June 22 - More than three decades after the Endangered Species Act gave the federal government tools and a mandate to protect animals, insects and plants threatened with extinction, the landmark law is facing the most intense efforts ever by the White House, Congress, landowners and industry to limit its reach.

More than any time in the law's 32-year history, the obligations it imposes on government and, indirectly, on landowners are being challenged in the courts, reworked in the agencies responsible for enforcing it and re-examined in Congress.

In some cases, the challenges are broad and sweeping, as when the Bush administration, in a legal battle over the best way to protect endangered salmon, declared Western dams to be as much a part of the landscape as the rivers they control. In others, the actions are deep in the realm of regulatory bureaucracy, as when a White House appointee at the Interior Department sought to influence scientific recommendations involving the sage grouse, a bird whose habitat includes areas of likely oil and gas deposits...

"There's an alignment of the planets of people against the Endangered Species Act in Congress, in the White House and in the agencies," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, executive vice president of Defenders of Wildlife, a lobbying group based in Washington.

NY Times: "For Months, Agriculture Department Delayed Announcing Result of Mad Cow Test"

Although the Agriculture Department confirmed Friday that a cow that died last year was infected with mad cow disease, a test the agency conducted seven months ago indicated that the animal had the disease. The result was never publicly disclosed.

The delay in confirming the United States' second case of mad cow disease seems to underscore what critics of the agency have said for a long time: that there are serious and systemic problems in the way the Agriculture Department tests animals for mad cow.

Indeed, the lengthy delay occurred despite the intense national interest in the disease and the fact that many countries have banned shipments of beef from the United States because of what they consider to be lax testing policies...

The explanation that the department gave late Friday, when the positive test result came to light, was that there was no bad intention or cover-up, and that the test in question was only experimental.

"The laboratory folks just never mentioned it to anyone higher up," said Ed Loyd, an Agriculture Department spokesman. "They didn't know if it was valid or not, so they didn't report it."

That's all for now. Again, let me know if you find all of this useful and if you would like to see this series of posts continue...and what changes, if any, you would make to the format.

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